Toy Soldier
by The StoryBook Tree
Summary: This story takes place before the fall of reach. This is the riveting tale of one of the forgotten Spartans named Clarke-113. This is Clarkes story of how he tries to push back the oncoming storm to save everyone and everything he holds dear. (Not as great with summaries anymore.:/) Please read and review


**Hey all you ravenous readers XD. Heres a Halo story for you guys. I personally love halo. Especially the origional bungie halo. Thats the one I usually use for history.**  
 **The 343 industries one rewrote the entire halo history in such a way that MC lives and the treaty between Arbiters Covenant and Humanity means nothing between the two factions. :(.**  
 **Anyway I'm using Bungies universe and I'm using some OC's ofmy own design. This goes back to the spartan 2 program. Yes, spartam 2. To bungie MC was a S2 but 343 didn't like that and made him S3 :(. So I see 343's halo as an alternate universe to Bungie's :/. It works. Anyway, thats enough out of me lets go to the story. I do not own Microsoft, Bungie, 343 Industries (:., or the Halo franchise in general.**

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Clarke remembered the tests. How much they hurt. He didn't remember much of his life outside the facility. He just figured he didn't have any parents, just like all of the other Kids in the facility. He'd been raised in the facility since before he could remember. Sometimes the the director would appear in their training sessions. The employees called her director, Dr., and occasionally the higher scientists and soldiers called her "Halsey".

Clarke remembered all the pain of the chemicals they injected and those damn machines they put all over his body, primarily in his head. When they would insert a training chip in the back of clarks neck he'd feel the tingle in the back of his brain as the program told him what to do and how to do it. He was never the head his class,  
that belonged to Caleb and Jade. He was never the best at Combat, that pleasure belonged to Emile. He was average for a spartan trainee. His friend John was alwys in there with him. John was the quiet type and Clarke never really talked that much either but John took it to the extreme, But damn, he was lucky. One day when they were 13 a F-Sec guy got angry at John for never responding to him. The lab-Techs couldn't stop him. He took John into the bleached quiet room with 3 Magnums. Hallsey then approached the door and watched with stoic silence.

He said 2 of the 3 magnums were loaded and john would pick one. The one John picked would decide his fate. John sat there for a moment and picked the one on the left.  
The man picked up the the gun and pointed it at John. John stood there completely calm without moving a muscle. The stuck the gun against johns forehead and pulled the trigger. It didn't fire. The man dropped the gun and had a look on his face of pure rage and threw a fist at John. John caught his hand in mid air and said in his low,  
scrachy, under-used voice, "Not today" and then he broke his arm. The officer officer collapsed and sceamed in pain. Hallsey smiled and then ordered her two body guards to detain the officer.

Thats just one show of Johns luck. But those stories stayed in the facility. He'd turned 16 and then their final test. If they passed they'd get their armor and they'd get shipped off to some other colony world to deal with a branch of insurection.

Clarke came out of his daze. He was starining into the silver visor of his Mjollnier MK4 Helmet. He looked up to see the orange sky of Caliph B4 or "Rust" as the locals called it. The planet resembled mars greatly as much of the planet was covered in Iron-Oxide sand which always has a reddish tint. The biggest difference is that Rust has an earthlike atmosphere and was closer to its star, a distance thats somewhere between earth and venus in scale. So its pretty hot but there is liquid water.  
There was a colony in the first place because under the rust covered surface, there was the biggest titanium deposit and other valuable ores. Thats what drew Calldrift corporation, so the UNSC followed. Thats what drew the Insurection too.

The warthog was nearing a lone settlement in the middle of nowhere. Clarke saw some mountains in the distance and a few drills but that was it. Clarke looked back down at his helmet and then turned it around and slid it up on his head. He looked over at the driver.

"Where are we going again?" Clarke asked the Marine driver.

"We're dropping you off at the base in ghosttown. The place is very accuratly named, just enough people to operate the machines that do all the mining. If you couldn't tell, we're a few thousand miles off New-Carthage. So, any idea why are they're stationing you here?" The driver said then asked

"Apparently the insurection is planning on siezing some platforms in this area for their own operations. UNSC says thats not going to happen."

"But you're a spartan? Wouldn't you be more valuable somewhere else?" The driver pointed out

"three platoons of marines or one spartan. Take your pick." Clarke responded.

"Huh, I wouldn't think spartans were THAT good but then I met the ones on Arcadia..." The driver said softly.

"You were on Arcadia?" Clarke asked now interested

"Yeah... Second Siege... I do my best not to remember those times..." The driver finished quietly.

"What was it like?" Clake asked.

"Bodies everywhere... I lost a lot of good friends... Those coveys are relentless. I spent three weeks in a foxhole with twelve other men waiting to die by being glassed out. The smell... I've had a lot of sleepless nights since then."

"How did you make it off?"

"Pelican. She was the best damn pilot i've ever seen. She got us up to Tomb of the Living and then she went back to rescue another group. I watched her flaming plane pumet from the sky to go crashing down to the unforgiving stained ground... 3 years later thay reclaim that hell-hole. I've gone back to Arcadia. I hate those trips. Too many ghosts..." A tear made its way down his face.

"Why go back?" Clarke had never seen sadness before. It was something Spartans never knew. He did know dissapointment, Anger, Hatred, but not sadness.

The driver was silent for a moment then started to seem dark and brooding. He was silent a moment longer then a sentence came from his chapped lips. "You can do your best to forget a place like that, but it doesn't forget you..."

Clarke dwelled on these words then he looked ahead and saw a collection of small metal buildings at the end of the dirt road. He assumed that was ghost-town. They drove down the rocky, dusty road and into the town. There was a building that said General Store. Another that said Saloon. The rest of the buildings appeared to be homes of the workers.

They approached a larger building and it was dug out of the side of a dune hill. It had armored walls and had a rectangular roof that had two landing pads on it. One for Pelicans, the other for Falcons. It had two sets of doors, one side, the larger one was made for entering vehicles. The other was for just a few people to enter.

The driver pressed a button on the dashboard and the garage door began to open just enough for the warthog to slide in with ease. The driver looked around confused as the jeep made it onto the sandy concrete in the garage and he started to park his jeep in its designated parking spot.

Clarke Noticed him looking around with unease. "Whats wrong?"

"There's always some guys in the garage. This is more than odd." He parked the jeep in its appropriate location and jumped out. "The only thing that would empty it like this is an emergency or really REALLY big news." He race walked over to the door and pounded the button to open it. Clarke jumped out and chased after him. They made their way down a slender dusty hallway that led to what seemed like the center of the base. They both walked into the central POW room thats in every UNSC base and saw a squad of marines surrounding two men in non-standard combat armor that had a bloody fist symbol on the top of their right arms. They had their hands tied and they were on their knees.

"Insurection." Clarke said revealing his presence to everyone in the room.

"The marines turned around and saw the driver which was apparently named Liutenant Mallard and Clarke. They all saluted when they saw Clarke and then told both of them that they found these two men bloodied on thier back doorstep. Clarke approached the two men and stood over them.

"Why are you here? You could have run anywhere. Why the one place that will detain you the quickest?" Clarke asked.

"We're the only survivors of our group. We came here to beg for protection." The one on the left who was chattier than the other stated.

"What drove you out?" Clarke asked suspiciously.

"The Covenant." The two spoke in sinc gravely.

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 **Thanks for reading guys :D. I hope you enjoyed. Chapter 2 coming soon. Please leave a review of what you thought about it! ^_^**


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